In a serial printer, a pair of transport rollers are mounted downstream of a print head. Paper is fed between these rollers. After characters are printed on the paper, it is held between the rollers and conveyed.
Portable and miniature personal computers and word processors have been developed. These small-sized machines are known as notebook-size computers and word processors and as laptop computers and word processors. With this trend, there is a demand for portable and small-sized printers.
When a printer is miniaturized, it is necessary to miniaturize the components. This is described now in further detail by referring to FIG. 10 which shows the prior art serial printer. Transport rollers 101 are mounted downstream of a print head 100. In order to achieve the miniaturization, the diameter of the rollers 101 must be reduced. When the diameter of the transport rollers 101 is small, if the front end of paper 102 curls to a great extent as indicated by the phantom line, then the possibility arises that the paper 102 cannot be transported between the rollers 101.